In the field of communications, the need for high-speed transmission of data, including video and audio, has continued to increase. Moreover, there has been an increase in the selection of services by which users can connect to a network, such as the Internet. Specifically, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may allow for connectivity to the Internet through lower-speed connections at different rates, such as 56 kilobits/second, by employing a plain old telephone service (POTS) line. Other choices for connection, which are at higher speeds, into a network can include integrated services digital network (ISDN), digital subscriber line (DSL) service, and cable modem service over a radio frequency (RF) cable line. Further, other types of content providers may enable a subscriber to receive different types of media, such as a video stream, audio stream, etc.
A network element terminates tens of thousands broadband subscriber sessions. As technology advances, the number of sessions that terminate on a single system is increasing. Service providers want to provide service level agreements for the services they provide. Hence maintaining the functioning state of a subscriber session is of very high importance. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a typical network element. Referring to FIG. 1, the network element includes one or more line cards and one or more control cards. One of the control cards is an active control card communicating with the lines cards. One of the control cards is a standby control card which will take over the tasks of the active control card when the active control card fails to operate. Typically, the active control card and the standby control card does not communicate with each other with respect to the dynamic operating states of the circuits provided by the line cards. When the active control card goes down and the standby control card takes over, the standby control card does not have the latest operating states of the circuits. As a result, the standby control card takes a relatively longer time to start up the processes and the subscribers of the network element may lose connections while the network element waits for the standby control card to fully operate.